Continue vs GitHub Copilot
Pricing
Continue: Free (open source), no longer maintained since June 2026
GitHub Copilot: Free tier, Pro from $10/mo
Description
Continue: Open-source AI assistant for VS Code and JetBrains. Cursor acquired it in June 2026 and the project is now read-only
GitHub Copilot: GitHub's AI coding assistant: inline suggestions, chat, and agent mode right in your editor
Pros
- The final 2.0 release still installs for free from the VS Code Marketplace, Open VSX and npm
- Works with your own API keys (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini and others) or local models through Ollama and LM Studio
- The code stays available under the Apache 2.0 license, so anyone can fork it
- Works everywhere: VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode, even the CLI
- Free tier is enough to see if AI coding helps your workflow
- $10/mo Pro is the cheapest paid option from a major player
Cons
- No longer maintained: no bug fixes, security patches or support for new models
- Hosted accounts and sign-in were retired after the acquisition
- Requires setup: picking a model, getting API keys, configuring the tool
- Suggestions can be generic, less context-aware than Cursor or Cody
- Agent mode is newer and still catching up to Cursor and Cline
- Free tier limits you to 2,000 completions/month
Details
Continue was the “bring your own model” approach to AI coding: a free, open-source extension for VS Code and JetBrains, plus a CLI, that connected to the LLM of your choice, from cloud APIs like Claude to local models through Ollama. You got autocomplete, chat and inline editing without a subscription.
In June 2026 Cursor acquired Continue. The team shipped a final 2.0 release on 19 June 2026, retired hosted accounts and sign-in, and made the GitHub repository read-only. The extensions still install and run with your own keys, but nothing will be fixed or updated. For the same free, model-agnostic setup with active development, use Cline inside VS Code, or Aider or Claude Code in the terminal.
Copilot is the safe default. It works in almost every editor, the price is right, and if you already use GitHub for your repos, it plugs in without any extra setup. The inline suggestions are good for everyday coding: writing boilerplate, completing function signatures, filling in repetitive patterns.
Where it falls short compared to newer tools is deep project understanding. Cursor and Cline can reason about your entire codebase; Copilot’s context window is more limited. The newer agent mode is improving this, but it is still playing catch-up. If you just want solid autocomplete at a low price, Copilot is hard to beat. If you want an AI that can refactor across 20 files, look elsewhere.
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